Rushibhashit Sutra

Author(s): Vinaysagar, Sagarmal Jain, Kalanath Shastri, Dineshchandra Sharma
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 195

28. AARDRAK
The twentyeighth chapter of Rishibhashit21 is about Aardrak. Available Prakrit forms of Aardrak are 1dda-a and Addag. However, we should remember that Rishibhashit contains details of two monks with similar names-Aardrak and Uddalak. In Prakrit Uddalak is called Uddalava; as such a note should be taken of the variation in the Sanskrit forms of these two names.
Besides Rishibhashit, we find mention of Aardrak also in Sutra-kritang, Sutrakritang-niryukti217 and Sutrakritangchurni218. In Avashyak219 also, he has been mentioned as Aardrak Kumar. According to Sutrakritang when he goes to become a monk, he meets monks from other Shraman traditions like Ajivak, Buddhist, and Hasti-tapas etc. and they present the special attributes of their respective traditions.
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Sutrakritang-churni also gives stories of his present and past births. According to the story he was the son of the king of Aardrakpur. Abhay Kumar had presented him an idol of Rishabh. Which inspired him to abandon the mundane life. In the Basantpur town a girl playfully took him as her husband and ultimately he had to marry her. But a few days later he once again moves out to become a monk and meets various monks as stated earlier. It is difficult to adjudge the authenticity of this story but one thing is certain, that he was some historical monk of the period of Buddha and Mahavir. The details of his discussions with monks of various traditions, narrated in Sutrakritang, confirm that he was either influenced by or belonged to the Nirgranth (Jain) tradition.
As regards his preachings in Rishibhashit are concerned, he preaches to be away from the lusty pleasures of the mundane world. According to him sexual desires are ailments and are the root cause of degradation. The people afflicted with sexual desires are sufferers of woes. Sexual desire is a sharp knife, it is poison. As long as a being does not destroy this knife or poison of sex he can not be liberated from the cycles of birth. The intellectual and scholar should try to remove his tarnishments every moment. When a single good deed of one moment is
194 इसिभासियाई सुत्ताई